I really believe this is why SaaS is such a dominating business model now. Software licensing failed because it is technically impossible, and no amount of clev

I really believe this is why SaaS is such a dominating business model now. Software licensing failed because it is technically impossible, and no amount of clever tricks will save you from determined groups / individuals. If it runs on your machine, you will be able to get it to run again without the licensing requirements. We saw large companies get pwned time and time again. On the other hand, there is no way you can see what a SaaS backend is doing and replicate that locally. Sure, you can rip off the frontend, but that's just a thin client over the API anyways. The API is the proprietary product, and much easier to secure. Even if a blackhat breaks into your SaaS repository and leaks your source code (which is generally a freak event, especially among businesses that take cybersec seriously) - what are your customers supposed to do with that? I wouldn't expect your average AirTable customer to be able to understand how to launch and maintain an AirTable instance. It's just a better idea to serve your product over the Web. If you sell native applications, you can't expect to make as much money as SaaS equivalents.